One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Friday, April 01, 2016

Book Review: The Interrupted Journey (1966)

This riveting fifty-year old account
of the Barney and Betty Hill Abduction is acause
celebrein UFO literature
and lore. The story, told expertly by journalist John G. Fuller, has also
become fodder for TV movies such asThe
UFO Incident(1975) and
fictionalized hour-long dramas such asDark
Skies(1996-1997).

The Interrupted Journey (1966) recounts (in meticulous detail) the
events of the evening of September 19, 1961, a span when an unassuming
interracial couple -- the Hills -- saw their weekend drive in New England
interrupted by a...flying saucer.

A UFO not only shadowed these unlucky sojourners for a time, but aliens
actually took the humans aboard their craft, the Hills alleged. There, a slew
of medical exams were conducted before the couple's release.

After this event, as Fuller recounts, the Hills returned to their home and
their jobs. Life went on, but they both felt mysteriously unsettled, with
significant gaps in their memories. Betty experienced nightmares for a time.
Barney saw a flare-up of his ulcer.

Soon, Betty began to remember bits and pieces of the unnerving experience, even
as Barney resisted the idea of aliens and flying saucers all together, fearing
that friends and family would find his story ludicrous.

But slowly and surely, the couple began to
come to terms with the bizarre, inexplicable events of that night.

The Hills were aided in this endeavor by a reputable, rock-solid psychiatrist,
Dr. Benjamin Simon, who utilized hypnosis to excavate the Hills' buried (or
blocked?) memories of the close encounter on September 19th 1961.

Their stories --told
separately in marathon individual sessions-- matched one another's very closely.
Husband and wife both spoke of an alien visitation that featuredmissing time(a span erased by the aliens...),medical exams(including a painful pregnancy test
for Betty...) and so on.

These thorough hypnosis sessions --which
often read as decisive, even prosecutorial cross-examinations-- are featured inThe Interrupted Journeyin the form of transcripts. These
word-for-word accounts make for absorbing, provocative and even anxiety-provoking
reading.

Fuller does well with the remainder of the text too, his prose devoid of
unnecessary or distracting drama,

Ultimately, we come to judge this oddly disturbing story on a human basis, apersonalbasis. The Hills don't seem like
craven attention-seekers (on the contrary actually...). They waited for years
to come forward in the public square to tell their version of the story, and
then only after an unscrupulous journalist published their story without
permission or input.

InThe
Interrupted Journey, when Barney first sees the alien leader's inhuman
black eyes glaring down at him (pressing telepathically into his skull), the
reader shares Barney's sense of primal terror; mainly because Fuller's sketched
the man in such realistic, human fashion.

The Interrupted Journeyis a remarkable work of literature,
and I recommend the book as such. Just don't take it at face value or asa priori,Gospel Truth. On the
(admittedly-limited) basis of literature, however,The Interrupted Journeyis entirely successful. You sympathize
with the characters; you're caught up in the drama, and the book evokes a
strange feeling that somehow,some
way, you're being watched while you turn the pages. It's not good material
to read while you're alone in the house.

Or after dark.The book makes you feel paranoid;
like you're under a microscope.

Yet the inner skeptic in me still had some questions and concerns about the
veracity of the Hill tale. Let me play devil's advocate for a bit, if you don't
mind.

To start with during her encounter with the aliens, Betty is offered an
extra-terrestrialbookas proof of the aliens' existence. The
aliens ultimately take the book back, however, conveniently defying Betty any
hard evidence of the encounter.

But my problem is with the idea of the alien book itself. We're nowhere near
the advent of interstellar flight, but in a few short years, print books will
go the way of the dodo on Earth, totally extinct;relics.Would aliens capable of interstellar
flight and mind-bending amnesia tricks still carry around books on their space
ship (where space and weight would presumably be at a premium....)?

Wouldn't they at least have Kindle?

Secondly, there's the alien confusion about "time." ToThe Interrupted Journey'scredit, the book openly and fairly
acknowledges this paradox. Specifically, the aliens tell Betty to"wait a minute"at one point but later, during her
exam, confess no knowledge and/or understanding of time or even of the passage
of time.

For instance, concepts such as
"years" and "old age" are beyond the Saucerites. If the
aliens could translate thought well-enough to use the phrase"wait a minute,"why couldn't the same technique bring
them an understanding of time?

Thirdly, the physical description of the flying saucer -- Barney and Betty'smutualdescription -- feels
uncomfortably like a 1960s phantasm of "future" technology. Barney
sees (through his binoculars...) a group of aliens standing at a large black
control panel. Again, in the decades since this book's publication, we've seen
the revolution of miniaturization, not to mention the development of touch
screen consoles.

When Barney first detects the aliens (as reported in a startling hypnosis
session) he briefly mistakes the uniformed extra-terrestrials for Nazis. In
another portion of the book, he admits that he has a deep-seated affinity for
the people of Israel. He identifies with them deeply, apparently fearing a
similar form of persecution (as a black man married to a white woman in 1960s
America).

Given his initial description of the
aliens as "Nazis" -- in tandem with this self-acknowledged
psychological affinity for Israelis -- the intrepid reader may begin to suspect
that this alien encounter could, in fact, be an hallucination,a folie-a-deux...an
event entirely psychological and not what we would consider "real."

Also, there are a few notable difference in Betty and Barney's story that do
bear a casual mention. Betty initially claims that the aliens possess"Jimmy Durante"-type
noses. By contrast, Barney says that the aliens havenonoses...only recessed nasal
slits. I'd be willing to chalk this up to the fog of abduction, but it's a
discrepancy nonetheless.

Finally, Betty admits that she and Barney do have some at least sub-conscious
awareness of the burgeoning sci-fi pop-culture of the 1960s. In particular, she
mentionsThe Twilight
Zoneby name during
one of her hypnosis sessions. And then there's this little factoid, straight
from Wikipedia:

But listen, I'm no debunker. I have no interest in that job assignment.

In terms of UFOs, let's just say......I
want to believe.I
really do. More than that, I'minclinedto believe. But to protect myself, I
also set a pretty high bar for that belief.

Disappointment can be a bitch.

My feeling on the subject of UFOs has always been that, given the size of the
universe, it seems entirely plausible that alien civilizations might indeed
exist....somewhere.

It is also entirely plausible to me that some life forms "out there"
would be sufficiently advanced for interstellar travel. There's a caveat,
however. Space traveling requires considerable resources, not to mention a tremendous
amount of energy, and it seems to me you would only travel some place far away
(like Earth...) for a matter of great import.

Which leaves me to consider three options in regards to the Hills.

One: the abduction happened in exactly the
way the couple described, and I'm incredibly wrong in whatever skepticism I
harbor.I sure hope that's
the case.

Or Two: the abduction happened all right, but it was a top secret government or
military experiment. Probably one involving mind-altering drugs.

Or, lastly, the Hills (now both deceased,
unfortunately...) experienced something traumatic but entirely human on
September 19, 1961; something that they didn't understand, and that their minds
couldn't adequately process. That mystery accounts for the story ofThe Interrupted Journey.

Again,I want to believe.
And while reading this book -- for a time -- Ididbelieve. Betty and Barney Hill seem
like good people, caught up in a terrible mystery. I don't know that you could
ask for better, more credible eye-witnesses. But in the end, one couple's word
-- even word of honor -- is simply not good enough. Not to sway me, anyway.

I wish desperately that the Hill Abduction could be proven conclusively; thatThe Interrupted Journeycould be respected as something more
than a fine, remarkably frightening campfire tale.

Perhaps one day it will be. But for now, that’s the purpose (ably) and
literately served by The Interrupted Journey.

2 comments:

This was one of my favorite books as a kid. I still own it, and have re-read it several times. It held me spellbound, and like you, I appreciate Fuller's serious, no-nonsense treatment of the material.

The Hills' story and the Papua, New Guinea UFO sightings by missionary Father William Gill were two incidents that fueled my enthusiasm for UFO cases. Both seemed credible to me, particularly the latter. Both have their debunkers and explanations.

The Hill case, I'm afraid, hasn't aged as well, and you are correct to take on the role of devil's advocate. I purchased and read the book Captured! by Stanton Friedman and Betty Hill's niece, Kathleen Marden, and rather than dispelling doubts, the updated accounting seemed to create more.

I still love The Interrupted Journey and enjoy the story of the Hills. It fires my imagination in ways that many media cannot. It makes sense to me that other civilizations may visit us with different agendas, having overcome the demands of energy and bulk during interstellar travel.

As for the book that Betty Hill found within the spacecraft, both Captains Kirk and Picard eschewed modern technology for antique literature; perhaps Betty had her hands on the alien equivalent of Moby Dick or A Tale of Two Cities. Now there's a book I'd love to get my hands on!

About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

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